This will be my last post on CodeBetter.com. For almost a year now I have had the opportunity to share the blog space with some amazing minds in our industry.

I am greatly honored to have had the opportunity to blog with CodeBetter, even for a short time. I am even more thankful for all of the people that I have had the opportunity to share with during my time here.

If you are curious about what I am upto, you will still be able to catch up with me on my blog : http://www.jpboodhoo.com/blog . I have been crossposting to both CodeBetter and there for my entire time here, so there will not be any difference in content for the past year.

Everyone who knows me will know that I can tend to ramble on about the topic of this post. I am a big proponent of trying to encourage people to stretch and really push to achieve dreams that they have identified that they want to see come to fruition.

I could ramble on about this topic and share my own thoughts and ideas with respect to how I personally went about making dreams a reality for myself and my family; instead I would like to share a video presentation from an amazing computer science professor named Randy Pausch.

I can’t stress enough the importance of outlook with respect to approaching every situation. This man is dying of pancreatic cancer and he still has a passion and fire that he wants to use to light up the lives of the people that he comes into contact with.

Though I don’t agree with all of the points that he makes in the video, the man is truly an inspirational teacher, and the life lessons he has learned to get to where he is are truly awesome.

I have to say a special thanks to Perry Neal for taking the time to send me the link. I watched the video on my second monitor at work, and then went home that same evening and watched it again with my wife.

Three points in the video really stuck a chord with me and I hope they will resonate with you long after you watch the video:

Brick walls are not only there to make us realize how much we want to achieve a goal, they are also there to keep out the others who are not willing to break through to their achievements.

You have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore. Your outlook on life and the situations that you are placed in will greatly affect the outcome and potential realization of your own dreams.

As someone who wants to impact kids with respect to getting them fired up about potential careers in software, the ALICE program looks like a phenomenal resource.

This video is an absolute must see, and I think you could potentially look at transforming your life if you allow some of the ideas and techniques this man is sharing to permeate your very core!!

There are just a little over 2 weeks left to register for the Toronto session of Nothin But .Net. If you have not heard what past attendees have had to say, take a look at a small sample of some of the comments from the the last course in Austin,TX:

I absolutely loved everything about this course. It will undoubtedly be one of the most memorable experiences of my life… well worth the money.

As advertised, this course was a very intense experience that stretched my programming knowledge and gave me may new techniques to apply to my current development. In addition, it offered a new approach, Behavioral Driven Design, to software development that I believe has the potential to increase productivity dramatically. Not to take anything away from J.P. as a developer, he is teaching techniques that I believe any programmer can learn to make programming easier. By raising the level of abstraction, he focuses your effort on small parts of the code so that coding seems almost effortless. Also, by letting the specifications drive the development process; his coding style encourages tight implementations without excess baggage. I think that the practice of object-oriented programming with some basic design patterns would move the Microsoft any development community a long way towards creating maintainable software that would change overall quality to the point that broken software would no longer be considered normal

I can’t say enough about the quality of this class. I have never attended a class, whether it was a week long training course, seminar, self study, or a college level class that was more valuable to me as a programmer. This class has been a very good investment into my career that will pay for itself many times over. The cost of this class was a steal! JP is a first class professional and his class mirrored that professionalism. It was obvious that he wasn’t trying to cut corners and milk out the most profit. This class was not just about knowledge transfer, but about being passionate about programming and taking your skills to the next level and how to actually do it.

This is one of the best trainings available. I think everyone should take this course as this provides very useful pointers towards becoming a better developer. I think this course has made me more focused than before on my dream towards becoming a better developer.

If you want to break out of a rut for a week, come and spend it with other professionals who are seeking for ways to improve themselves both professionally and personally!!

In case you did not know DevTeach will be coming to Toronto for the first time this year!!

Are you familiar with DevTeach? If you are, then you know that you have to prepare yourself for excellent content filled presentations; most of all, get ready to spend a great week chatting with some amazing presenters and attendees who are passionate about growing as people and professionals.

If you are curious to see if there are people you may want to chat with (from the speaker perspective) then check out the following page: Speakers

If you register and you see me at DevTeach, please take the time to introduce yourself!!

I was just listening to one of my favorite podcasts (sorry, not anything remotely technical) and the title for the newest track caught my eye as it is definitely something that I try to encourage everyone to do:

The title of the mix is Press on with the following description:

Press on to start, press on to keep from stopping

Good advice for anyone who wants to find satisfaction in what they do.